Interesting Chat with MOV.AI on AMRs & their Future

MOV.AI is a robotics engine platform based on ROS and packaged in an intuitive web-based interface. It contains everything needed to build, deploy and operate intelligent robots. The company’s tools completely change how Autonomous Mobile Robots are developed in terms of time to market, cost, and flexibility.

We spoke to Motti, an entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in the software industry. Before joining MOV.AI Ltd, he was the CEO & Co. Founder of  InfinityAR (Acquired by Alibaba), Chief Marketing and Product officer of Telmap (Acquired by Intel), and the VP of Amdocs search and digital advertising division. 

01. AI is changing AMRs as we know them. What do you mean by this? Why is the MOV.AI way different?

MOV.AI is the only company in the world to provide one suit that takes care of all the robotics ecosystem players (robot manufacturers, automation integrators, and robots operators)
For robot manufacturers – speed up robot development with out-of-the-box tools and infrastructure to develop unique, easy-to-deploy AMR software at a fraction of the time and cost.

• Source available ROS-based software development tools
• Off-the-shelf autonomy algorithm
• An open API framework

For automation integrators – ensure deployment success with integrated deployment tools that ensure seamless deployment and integration with existing automation environments and tools.
For the end customers – enable smooth operation and control of heterogeneous robot fleets.

• Advanced fleet management
• Robot operations task management
• Cyber security
• Software lifecycle management

MOV.AI provide its IDE as a source available tool for all the robotic ecosystem to use as a development environment for ROS – https://www.mov.ai/flow/

02. What is the cost advantage that your company offers?

Developing software for autonomous mobile robots, it’s a highly complex task. First, you need to choose your development platform, then develop a suite of algorithms to handle mapping, localization, navigation, obstacle detection, etc. You also need to create a set of deployment tools that will assist the automation integrator in deploying your robot quickly and efficiently. Tools like site mapping, task creation, trajectories planning, traffic management, API for smooth integration to the warehouse management system, and ERP. Eventually, provide the end customer robot user with set-off fleet control tools, analytics, and task handling. Building such a complicated set of tools usually requires 20 to 30 high-end developers for at least two to three years. By choosing MOV.AI, the customer can save all the costs associated with building the software platform and focus on developing his differentiation algorithm by utilizing our software platform.

03. In a typical project, does a client use your platform or also take support from you on best user practices and usage?

MOV.AI’s business model is a software as a service (SAAS). Our customer pays a license fee per robot per year. We provide our customers with documentation so they can develop and use our software by themselves. Some of our customers choose to purchase from MOV.AI professional services. Those professional services can be used during the integration of the software to the physical robot; it can be training to the automation integrator, which uses our software to deploy the robots, and sometimes even assist our customers in the first deployment of their robots on an end customer site.

04. Are you mainly working with European clients?

Currently, we are focused on the EU and North America. As our technology enables human-robot collaboration and allows the AMR to replace expensive human labor, we focus on territories where human labor is high and hard to recruit.

05. Can your solutions be used in parts, or is it a package?

MOV.AI solution can be used in parts. We are providing three tiers:

• Free to use IDE (source available) that introduce visualization and structure to ROS
• Basic – set of tools that allow a small fleet of robots to operate in a non-dynamic environment
• Pro – complete set of tools to allow the development, deployment, if maybe, and operation of a fleet of robots in a highly dynamic and cluttered environment

06. Do you plan to venture into hardware or tie up with a hardware developer?

We do not plan to venture with an HW developer but remain a pure SW company.

07. What do you see in the future usage of AMR in a relationship with a human robot?

Today, most AGVs and AMRs are deployed in “light out” environments, meaning they are being deployed in warehouses or manufacturing sites where humans and other machines are not allowed in. MOV.AI believes that robots should assist humans in their day-to-day jobs and tasks. We do not expect our customers to build new environments for robots. On the contrary, we believe robots should be deployed in existing warehouses and manufacturing sites, interacting seamlessly with humans and other machines. Interacting with humans in existing sites that were never designed to accommodate robots require the robot to be much more sophisticated and aware of its surrounding. MOV.AI software allows AMRs to work alongside people while replacing chores that used to be performed by humans.